Percy Green was about that action. He was the leader of St. Louis’ ACTION (the Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes) organization and this group was all about real radical change, especially when it came to our economic well-being.
So when the city started building the famous Gateway Arch without hiring a single Black person, he knew he had to take things to a new level because this meant we wouldn’t share the economic benefits of being paid to help with the project.
Green scaled the site of the Gateway Arch, which was 125 feet tall, in protest. Green once said, “If you are going to engage in civil disobedience, it has to do at least two things: One, convey the message. Two, bring pressure upon those who are responsible for making change.”
The backlash to Green’s Arch protest was incredible, just as Green predicted. Construction companies were eventually pressured to hire more Black workers. ACTION members continued to fight on in other ways to call out the city’s racist hiring practices across various roles and industries. Members even once disguised themselves as janitors and staged a “stick-in” pouring molasses all over a company’s lobby floor.
Some of us prefer to be in the classroom, the courtroom, or out in the streets, like Percy Green. There’s no right way to get our liberation, but we must be unified in our strategy to get the desired results.